REFORM LOSERS?

Reform UK are consistently topping national polls at the moment.  It's an irrefutable fact.  Since the turn of the month, they have led eight of 14 polls - including all three YouGov polls carried out so far during February.  Their results in recent council by-elections are also nothing short of stunning.  A relatively new party, they are fielding candidates in most of these seats for the first time and they are beginning to push the big two parties into second and third, while leaving much older parties such as the Greens and Lib Dems trailing far behind.

Needless to say, Reform are making the most of the momentum highlighting their by-election victories and consistent poll leads.  After-all, this is politics and any such party would be foolish not to communicate their election-winning potential with as many voters as possible.

Success breeds success and Reform's winning message is certainly getting through.  Asides from the droves of Labour voters who are flocking to Reform, there will always remain a hardcore of middle class 'progressives' and outright communists who despise conservative and libertarian voices.  They too have noticed Reform's positive publicity campaign, and they are not happy.

While Reform have regularly been picking up council seats over the last few months - including four so far this month - in last Thursday's round of by-elections they did not gain any seats.  The progressives and leftists were quick to leap on this and hand Reform activists 'their arses'.  However, last Thursday's six council by-elections overwhelmingly took place in areas where Reform would not expect to win or poll particularly strongly.  Four of those seats were in London, one in Scotland, and the only one in which they would be expected to challenge the incumbent party was Colchester in Essex.

Despite the fact they are new kids on the block in nearly every council seat they contest, Reform still managed to poll more than ten per cent across all the seats the party fought last Thursday, including a second place finish in Hammersmith of all places.  They also finished second in Colchester, where they shared the spoils of a large swing away from Labour with the Tory incumbents.

Dimwit lefties and posho progressives who subsequently mocked Reform online for their 'losses' either don't understand local politics or were being deliberately obtuse.  In the process of compiling the results for last Thursday's council contests, Richey came across several instances of anti-Reform trolling on X.  One such comment was left on a Reform activist's account after he posted the result of a national opinion poll.  Again, the level of stupidity in conflating national polls with a series of random local results falls off the chart.

As you can see, Dermot O'Leary's first example of a Reform 'defeat' is a by-election in which they did not even field a candidate.  While Richey rarely gets into Twitter spats, he did embark on an exchange with Mr O'Leary, who we can only assume is not the radio presenter of the same name.  Two replies in, Richey tries to extricate himself from the exchange and it appears to end.

Hours later, after he discovers the result of the Colchester by-election, Mr O'Leary reignites the thread.  Richey then demolishes him with a comeback that decisively ended the exchange.

This week sees a handful of by-elections in East Anglia, a region which returned the majority of Reform's MPs last year.  If they win a seat or two there will be silence from the likes of Mr O'Leary.  If there are no gains, the daft trolling will resume.

The big test of Reform's election-winning capacity will come in May's local elections - that is assuming that this Labour government allow any of them to proceed...